October 24 – January 31, 2014 – Marnie Bettridge & Kathleen Vance

ABANDON ISOLATION

Press Release (ENGLISH)

An international exhibition featuring new installations by Marnie Bettridge and Kathleen Vance

Opening: October 24, 2013 – 6-9pm

Exhibition: Oct. 25 – Jan. 31, 2014

As people continue to build and create artificial environments around them, they find themselves cut off from nature. The natural world becomes, in a sense, a luxury — a weekend to the country side, a rooftop garden, a day in the park. Other things have come to occupy the individual’s time and he or she no longer interacts as they once did with their natural surroundings; we’ve become desensitized and ignorant towards nature.

ROCKELMANN& is looking forward to re-exposing the viewer to the intricacies and beauty of nature. The show “Abandon Isolation” will feature two land artists, Marnie Bettridge and Kathleen Vance. Both express a lonely connection to nature and feelings of loss and wonder. In their site specific installations they seek to recreate and call attention to the beauty in the detail, an invitation to take back a discarded world.

Marnie Bettridge is an American Artist working and living in the Gulf Coast of Florida. She finds inspiration in objects and materials that catch her eye, loosely incorporating them into her work. As the piece she works on begins to take form she experiences a certain apprehension of failure and becomes more demanding of the components. Having studied architecture her work upholds a solid form, yet there remains a certain fragility brought on by these anxieties. Also relevant in her work is the notion of beauty. Instead of looking for beauty, we see the imperfect – criticism and judgment often come first and foremost. Bettridge chooses to work with materials found and or created from the earth. She likes to encourage “circumnavigation, strange postures, and a certain feeling of getting away with something”. Bettridge reminds us that value shifts with time, we mourn the forgotten, and need to find a peace with the fact that we will all become immaterial.

Also an American living and working in New York, Kathleen Vance grew up on a rural farm in Maryland which inspired a special connection to nature. Vance has travelled to numerous nature preserves in the United States developing an appreciation for the environment and finding that “In reducing the scale, the entirety…can be taken in all at once, enhancing an appreciation, while relating the fragility and the tenuous conditions…” The site-specific installation “Rogue Stream,” is a continuation of a series addressing “issues of water rights, conservation and the elemental need to protect our natural resources. This piece explores the concept of a ‘rogue stream’ one that has jumped its bank and chosen a new path.” Also accompanying the stream is a detailed drawing hinting at the warped perception of ownership of property, extending to water rights.

The show challenges you to abandon your isolation and reconnect with the environment on a unique conceptual level. Both artists will be present to further enrich the theme and presentation.